Allison Rawlings on How to Start With Yes

Mixing Board Studio Session

Allison Rawlings has a background in branding, media relations, culture building and executive thought leadership that spans from major Hollywood studios to internationally recognized brands with a focus on entertainment, technology and media.

Allison just wrapped up nearly a decade at NBCUniversal where she was the Executive Vice President of Communications for Television & Streaming. There, she built and led a holistic, integrated communications function for the media division, which includes NBC, Peacock, and the company’s six entertainment cable networks. Before that she was the Head of Public Relations at DreamWorks Animation, the Head of Communications at Geffen Playhouse, a Senior Account Supervisor at the PR/branding agency Cohn & Wolfe, and a PR Associate at the Los Angeles Philharmonic / Hollywood Bowl.

In this Studio Session, Allison and Mixing Board Founder Sean Garrett talk about how to keep a client-focused mentality even when you go in-house, how to manage stakeholders by making a ‘no’ sound like a ‘yes,’ why brands need to be built from the inside out and why we shouldn’t be so strict about ‘staying in our lanes.

SG: What are you up to right now?

AR: For the first time in my 20-plus career, I’m a free agent! Which means I actually have the time and the headspace to be out in the world, talking to interesting people, learning about who’s doing exciting things and being able to take the pulse of the industry and beyond. And it’s a little thrilling to have the space to think about where I want to go next – where I can make an impact and potentially partner with some of these leaders that are doing exciting things.

SG: You just came out of NBCUniversal, and you were at DreamWorks before that. For 14 years, you were in a front-row seat to big technological shifts in entertainment. How has that defined your work?

AR: Yes, I’ve had a different experience since the majority of my career hasn’t been focused on tune-in or butts-in-seats (which certainly has its own merits and challenges), but has been more around using comms to help brands through times of transformational change.

When I joined NBCUniversal 10 years ago, it was specifically on the broadcast side and we were we trying to cement NBC as the #1 network. There was clarity and focus, and it was easy to understand what success looked like. Then streaming exploded and the ground started shifting underneath everyone’s feet.

The communications teams were at the center of figuring out how to storytell, both internally and externally, during this time of disruption. How do we lean into legacy IP and the iconic foundation of these major entertainment companies while also transitioning to where we know the future is going? What do audiences want now and how do we tell a story for these brands that not only bridges the gap, but also prepares us for the next thing? And it was a challenge, but also really exciting to be on the frontlines of some of these conversations.

SG: Speaking of next things, a couple of years ago, you took over communications for Peacock...

AR: Yes - I took over communications for Peacock about two years ago when NBCU created a singular television and streaming division that housed both content and distribution for all of the company’s entertainment platforms. Peacock was an interesting brand challenge because we certainly weren't the #1 streamer – frankly, we weren't even really in conversation at that point – but it felt like we had a moment to step back and say, OK, what makes us different than the platforms who are already such behemoths in this space and how do we tell that story?

And as a leadership team, we got together and cracked a brand story that was rooted in something that (at the time) was uniquely Peacock – live sports and the Olympics, next-day shows from NBC and Bravo and new movies from Universal. So we were able to communicate how we fit into the broader streaming landscape and become part of the conversation in a way that we weren’t really getting credit for previously.

SG: The entertainment industry hasn't always had the reputation for generating the most strategic communications. Seemingly, a lot of it is publicity-driven PR, let's just get some attention. Is this an unfair characterization and what’s been your experience?

AR: Maybe a little unfair! But yes, at times it has been an uphill battle to educate people on the difference between communications and publicity, and how they can serve an organization differently. It also helped that I didn't come up in the entertainment business. I started in-house at arts organizations and worked at a branding agency before moving into entertainment, so I’ve been able to bring that perspective to the media roles.

That broader point of reference has been really valuable because I’ve found I can come in without many of the preconceived notions of how things have been and just focus on what they can be, bringing all the things that I've learned from one industry into the next. That’s often offering a different perspective than someone who has stayed in the same industry or in the same company for their entire career.

SG: I don't mean to diminish the work at all. I'm less thinking about more of the actual comms folks and their capabilities and more of the expectations or potentially the executives and always working off of perspectives that maybe are a little bit dated – especially in an industry that has operated a certain way for a long time. How have you helped take along the leaders in rethinking how to do this?

AR: Like at any company, it depends on the leader. I’ve had the great fortune to work for a series of leaders – at the Geffen Playhouse, at DreamWorks, at NBCU – who really understood and valued the communications function. From day one, it was always about being a strategic partner to help them turn the ship or tackle something new.

They brought me in because they wanted that feedback, that partnership, that ideation in a communications leader versus just looking at comms as functional support. It was rarely, what have you done for me lately, where's the hit, how is that the headline?! And that’s not say the team wasn’t delivering on all of those things, but most of the leadership I’ve worked for was looking long-term because they wanted to make a change to how their brand was perceived and they were smart enough to understand the role that communications plays in that transformation.

SG: From a technique and managing-up perspective, what have you found to be useful tools in the toolbox as you're working through dynamic situations?

AR: The tools that I learned early in my career being at an agency have served me so well coming in-house. One of them is this client-focused mentality and the ability to build a client’s trust. At an agency, you need to prove your worth every month because otherwise that monthly retainer disappears. In-house, that pressure goes away, but I’ve found that acting like all the internal stakeholders are clients has helped tremendously.

I had a piece of typography art behind my desk at NBCU that said in big, bold letters: Start With Yes. My team has heard me say that a million times … “You're not going to be the person that says, no, we can't do that because [insert often valid reason here]. You're going to be the person that starts with yes.” Now that doesn't always mean we’re going to end with yes. But starting from a place of, “OK, I love that, let's figure out how to do that together” has served my teams well. It makes people want to come to us again because we’re perceived as the team that's going to help accomplish their great idea versus the comms team that always shuts things down (which unfortunately is the reputation of a lot of corporate comms teams!). Especially when working at a huge company where there are so many stakeholders required to get anything done, starting with yes is the first step to ensuring the comms team has a seat at the table for big decisions and cross-company initiatives.

Now, there’s a big asterisk on that, which is that sometimes too many “yeses” can lead to being overextended. That can be true both at the personal level and also for companies/brands. For example, if you raise your hand and take on 20 various projects, but you're really, really exceptional at one thing – well, now you don't have time to do that one thing because you're doing the 20 other things. And you're likely doing them all at a level of mediocrity that doesn't serve you, versus kicking ass at the one thing that you’re uniquely exceptional at.

And the same thing is true for companies trying to define a strong, differentiated brand. In order for that message to reach audiences, it requires a focused strategy that specifically amplifies X, Y, and Z, but equally important is understanding that that same brand can't say yes to all this stuff over here because that will ultimately dilute the power of X, Y and Z.

So, sometimes, it’s actually beneficial to say no. But (as we just discussed), you don't want to be the no guy! That's not fun.

Then the trick becomes: How do you say no, but have the person asking, hear a yes? In regard to managing key internal stakeholders, it can look a lot like, “Hey, can you help me with this project?” “Yes, I would love to help you with this project, but [basket weaving] isn’t my area of expertise and I want you to have the best. I actually know three people who are [world champion basket weavers] and would help elevate your project. Let me make that introduction via email right now. And please, let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.”

So we just basically said “No, I will not help you with that project.” But from the other side, it hopefully sounded like we’re being super helpful. We started with “yes” and ended with ‘How else can I help?” Big disclaimer: Obviously if the person asking is your direct manager, you might (wisely) choose to ignore this method.

And on the brand side, it often means convincing leadership that passing on some opportunities is more about saying a stronger YES to what’s actually going to move the needle for a business. Creating a comprehensive brand filter early on is a good tool to aid in these discussions so it sets the conversation up as you fighting for something versus saying no to something.

SG: How have you seen comms evolve? There's been a lot said about the evolution of internal comms, for example. And as you step away from NBCU, what is the before photo and what's the after photo as you come out?

AR: This is not going to be revelatory to any comms professional reading this, but it used to be if you got a story in the New York Times, a hit on TODAY and an NPR or Voice of America radio piece, you were pretty much done. The majority of America had gotten your message, and that was that, right? There was a single news cycle and there was a limited amount of print or air space, so there wasn't as much noise. Now we all know to get the same number of eyeballs, it's a million fractured different places. You still have to get that top-tier media, but then you also have to go to podcasts, newsletters, niche websites, not to mention social media. It's a different cadence.

And I think one of the things that has become increasingly more important as the external media landscape becomes more and more fractured, is the power of internal comms, particularly when you're working at a big company. Some of these big companies have employee numbers that are tens and tens of thousands, sometimes upwards of a 100,000 people, and that’s bigger than the audience of a lot of the external media outlets that we often jump through hoops to get stories in.

So strictly from a size standpoint, internal comms absolutely should not be overlooked. But moreover, from a strategic standpoint, I absolutely believe that brands are built from the inside out. When companies are at inflection points and going through transformational change, it’s the people who are dedicating their time day-in and day-out who not only have the potential to be the company’s greatest advocates and your biggest brand ambassadors, but they can also be the company’s biggest detractors.

I've seen it happen a few times when the internal comms piece is overlooked or ignored, and then we go out and do a big splashy thing, and it seems so far removed from the brand that employees experience every day that they’ll go and leak something confidential to the press or they’ll take to the comments or social media. Because if the external brand doesn't match the internal brand culture, it's like frosting a cake that's raw in the middle. It might look pretty, but it definitely doesn’t pass the taste test.

SG: Smart comms folks would all agree that this is super important. But at some of the big companies you've worked at, it's very complex. It's always changing. You talk about all these reorgs that happen over and over again. You have different departments moving, you have buying new assets all the time. What’s your approach to successful internal comms?

AR: It's not to say that we’ve done it right all the time. Unfortunately, despite best laid plans, something will leak to the press. All of a sudden people internally are reading important news externally, and that’s always the worst feeling because you try so hard not to make that happen. But prioritizing internal comms is a good start, and a lot of it is tied to culture.

There are tactical things we always put in place, all the stuff that everyone knows, the tools of our trade – the leadership town halls, the internal newsletters, etc. But one of the things that our team was really focused on was the idea that the same way we have to get our message out to all those varied external outlets in different mediums, we have to do the same internally.

Do an in-person town hall that's also recorded and sent out after (via email, and Slack and put on the company intranet), do regular, short video messages, hold leadership office hours. Internal comms needs to be just as multifaceted as external comms because not all employees want the same level of information in the same way.

So how do we balance overcommunication, which can annoy people or turn into white noise, with making sure there's transparency, trust, and a clear desire to bring people along for the ride? Ultimately that’s the crux of internal comms – there's two sides of it, one is the practical side, which is making sure your internal message and your external message match. But moreover, just from a culture standpoint, you want people to feel like there is mutual trust and that they’re part of something. You're asking them to show up everyday and work really hard (likely at all hours), so what are you giving back to them? People have to feel like they are vested in the story.

SG: Another complexity that you faced, especially in your last job, is a huge organization with all these different multiple brands. You have a parent company, but you're also a parent company yourself, and you have a bunch of cousins and all these different entities that you're working with. How are you coordinating across a whole bunch of different other teams that do similar stuff? And maybe that even changes by the month on who's doing what and who owns what. You obviously did a very effective job of it, but it has to be so hard. How do you approach those kinds of matrixed organizations?

AR: Yes, we’re all telling our own version of the story, but at the end of the day, it has to work together to serve the larger corporate narrative. More and more these various divisions overlap, whether it’s through IP or titles that are appearing on multiple platforms, and as a result there’s a lot of talk about “swim lanes” and how everyone should just stay in them. As in, “Everything was going great, and then this other person came in with a question or an opinion, and I wish they would just stay in their lane.”

But I have a slightly different take. Early on in the formation of our cross-functional comms team, people would complain about their lanes pretty often. And finally, it got to the point where we dedicated an entire offsite to the value of thinking about things differently. So my team’s mantra became synchronized swimming.

That means instead of getting frustrated when someone crosses into your lane, we recognize it's actually someone's job to be swimming right next to you. Sometimes it’s in sync, sometimes complementary, but it's thoughtful and strategic and they're doing it with intention toward a common goal because that’s the only way we can create something with the scope and impact that we want.

There needs to be clear accountability, but I don't think we can live in a world with swim lanes anymore. Whether you're at a huge company with siloed divisions or a startup with jacks-of-all-trades, all the pieces of these companies are so intertwined. Where is the line between entertainment, media, tech, gaming, public policy, etc? It requires so much collaboration with peers who may do the same thing as you, but also with stakeholders who need a version of what you do, but may not do it in the same way. This idea of synchronized swimming helped us banish that territorial instinct that all of us have and reframe it so that success is when we do this thing well together versus me making it to the end of the pool on my own.

SG: You're at a moment where you can be reflective, look at all the things, and think about the art of the possible for yourself. What about people who are just entering the industry and their dream is to work for DreamWorks or NBCU. There will always be a lot of people who want to work in the entertainment and media industry. What's your advice for people who feel this calling?

AR: I’ve been fortunate enough to love every job that I've had. To be able to wake up in the morning and really feel like I get to go someplace that’s exciting and interesting, where I’m surrounded by smart people who I can learn from – that’s been the case throughout my career. We spend so much time at work, particularly if you're a comms person, so if you feel like something is going to feed the piece of you that gets you excited to go to work every day, try to figure out a way to do it. Even if it's just for a short amount of time, it's good for the soul.

As for the how, I think sometimes people don’t even try because they think if they don’t already have experience in the field, they’ll never get hired. But I believe there are certain skills that good comms professionals have that transcend whatever industry we’re working in. It's what some people would call “soft skills,” which is not my favorite term. Because as a manager, I would hire someone with “soft skills” – meaning they're resourceful, ambitious, smart, inquisitive, excited to dive in – any day over someone who didn’t demonstrate the above, but knew how to write a press release or balance a budget because you can teach those things so easily. It’s a lot harder to teach someone how to be curious, how to be passionate, how to show up.

Even though as comms leaders we often have very serious jobs – we’re on the frontlines of crises and reputation management for our companies, and we're a partner to CEOs and presidents, and there are often really high stakes. But at the end of the day, I truly believe that at the core of a great comms person is a cheerleader. Someone who everyone knows is central to the brand because you believe it, you feel it, and you're out there every day doing the work to bring it to life. You can't teach that.

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